Making stamps

New task: make stamps for an activity with children! We need 10 stamps to use on a “passport” for the children that will come every day for different activities. Just the right occasion to use the flexible PLA we bought quite a while ago, because stamps must be rubbery So, there are many ways to make a stamp, but having no 3d modelling abilities I had to find quite a complex workaround and here we are.

1: the actual design for the stamps was made with a graphical software and exported as a PNG.

3: Netfabb to the rescue!! Just fire it up and open the file, then you can save it as an Stl. If you forgot to do it, you can mirror the design so the letters don’t come out written backwards (yes, we’ve done it!)

4: now we have to add the back of the stamp, you could have done it before maybe, but we were not certain how it would come out when extruding it so we decided to add it now. I use Tinkercad, just import your stl, design a flat cylinder and stick it on. Obviously this step can be greatly improved, feel free to add any ideas in the comments!

5: and we finally have a printable stl file!! We chose to print it with Ultimaker’s Flexible PLAI strangely had no problems printing with it, obviously I drastically changed the speed (10mm/sec) but when in a hurry to finish a piece I increased it I had no difficulties. I wanted to exclude retraction but left it by mistake and had no problems.

The first experiment was with 200° and the details peeled off, so we tried with 235° and it sticks wonderfully. Using these settings we found out that it kept the finer details, and when using it with ink it looked much better.

Maybe slightly melting the last layer (touching a heated surface) would improve the final effect making all the lines disappear.